After weeks of speculation, Namibia’s national oil company NAMCOR has confirmed that Shell made a light oil discovery at the Graff-1 well on the PEL-39 license in the Orange Basin.
The block is operated by Shell with a 45% interest along with QatarEnergy (45%) and NAMCOR (10%).
The Graff-1 deep-water well was drilled to a total depth of 5,376 meters in water depths of approximately 2,000 meters, between December 2021 and February 2022.
“The partners will conduct analysis on the well data and further exploration activity to determine the full size and recoverable resource potential,” QatarEnergy said, indicating that a second exploratory well might be on the table in the near future.
“In the coming months, we will perform extensive laboratory analyses to gain a better
understanding of the reservoir quality and potential flow rates achievable,” NAMCOR added in a statement.
The discovery is encouraging news for TotalEnergies, who is drilling the Venus-1X well nearby, and for Eco Atlantic Oil & Gas who expects to spud the Gazania-1 well in the same basin this year but in South Africa.
More on ongoing exploration activity in the Orange Basin can be found within Hawilti’s quarterly sector watch on Sub-Saharan African Exploration, available within the Hawilti+ research terminal.